Coasts and shelves
Shallow seas over the continental shelf. 89 fish on EveryFish so far.
The continental shelf is the shallow sea bed that fringes the continents, usually less than about 200 metres deep. It covers under a tenth of the ocean, but sunlight and nutrients from rivers and upwelling make it very productive, and most of the world's sea catch comes from it. Coastal seas hold schools of sardines and mackerel near the surface and cod, croakers and flatfish near the bottom.
India's coastal fisheries
India has a long coastline, remeasured in 2024 at more than 11,000 km, and most of its sea catch comes from the shelf. Oil sardine and mackerel dominate on the south-west coast, Bombay duck, pomfret and ribbonfish in the north-west, and hilsa, croakers and prawns in the Bay of Bengal. Small-scale fishers work close to shore, while trawlers and purse seiners fish further out. Mechanised fishing stops for 61 days each year during the monsoon breeding season.
Pressure on the shelf
Because shelf seas are close to land and easy to reach, they are heavily fished. Bottom trawling catches many young fish and disturbs the sea bed. Pollution from rivers, coastal building and the loss of mangroves and sea grass affect nurseries. In many seas, catches have shifted from large, valuable fish to smaller ones as the larger fish have been fished out. Marine protected areas and closed seasons are the main tools used to rebuild stocks.
Still to be written: Indian mackerel, Indian oil sardine, Bombay duck, Pampus argenteus, Largehead hairtail, Atlantic cod, European plaice, Atlantic herring.
Further reading
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Green moray: Blueag9, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Giant moray: Nhobgood Nick Hobgood, CC BY-SA 3.0, source